The Firefly Effect
by Casteline
Summary: Sam kills everything he touches. Sabriel, with a side of Destiel.


**The Firefly Effect**

"You're alive," Sam Winchester said when the Demi-God/Trickster/Archangel appeared in front of him, looking exactly the same as he had the day he'd died.

"Did you miss me, gigantor?" Gabriel said with a grin. Sam punched him.

"You've been alive, all this time? Do you know how much hell we've been through these last few years? We could have used you."

"_Used_," Gabriel repeated. "Is precisely the reason I've stayed away."

"You know what I meant."

"Yeah, well, the two of you are still kicking, aren't you? It can't have been that bad."

"So you haven't been keeping tabs on us?"

"Someone like me? I could live a million, trillion lifetimes in the time it takes you to blink an eye. Your whole life is barely a blip. Why would I keep tabs on tiny fireflies on one tiny plant, when there are planets out there made entirely of beaches?"

"Cause you like us."

"Nuh uh," Gabriel said, shaking a finger at him. "I like _you_. Your brother I could do without."

Sam rolled his eyes. "So you don't know that I spent an eternity in hell, while my body ran around topside for over a year. I'm sure you missed the Angels' Civil War, and Cas and Crowley conspiring to open purgatory. And that part where Cas went a little crazy from an overdose of souls, then died, but only after unleashing an army of Leviathan on the world, and how I spent _months_ dealing with hallucinations cause by years of torture from your brother. And that when we finally figured out how to stop the Leviathan, it meant that Dean and Cas got stuck in purgatory for two years and I thought they were dead. I was _alone_, hunting down the Leviathan for _two years_ because I was the only one left. If you had known any of that, maybe you would have taken a little break from your vacation to help out."

Gabriel nodded. "Maybe I would have."

"That's it? That's all you have to say?"

"Wanna go to Valora with me? They have ice cream floats that _actually_ float. We could spend as long as you like there, and I could still have you back by morning. Those two will never even know you were gone," he added, nodding to the other bed, where Dean and Castiel were curled around one another.

Sam let out a laugh. "I'm gonna have to pass."

"Mkay. But don't you say I never offered you anything." He raised his hand to snap his fingers, but Sam stopped him.

"You could _stay_ you know," he said.

"And why would I do that?"

Sam shrugged. "Who knows. Could be fun though. And what have you got to lose? You said it yourself, you could live a million, trillion lifetimes in the blink of an eye. So what's a couple months with the Winchesters?"

Sometimes Sam's low self-esteem gets the better of him and he wonders what Gabriel is still doing there, sharing his bed, after nearly three months. In all honesty, he hadn't expected him to stay at all, and yet, there he was. And sometimes Gabriel would kiss him like there was nothing else in the world that mattered so much, and Sam just didn't understand.

Because they weren't like Dean and Cas. They hadn't been building to this since the moment they met, they hadn't spent two years in a place worse than hell (Gabriel said it was no doubt a great deal longer for them). This was just something that happened, and despite the fact that it kind of made sense, it kind of really didn't.

"I'm just one tiny firefly on one tiny planet. Why are you still here?"

Gabriel rolled on top of him and stared into his eyes. "Maybe you are just _one tiny firefly_. But you shine so brightly. And maybe my time with you will feel like the blink of an eye in a hundred years. But right now it's kind of important."

"I kill everything I touch," he said one day after a particularly scaring near-death experience on Gabriel's part. "You're lucky you're alive."

"You do have a pretty bad track record, don't you, Sammy?" Gabriel laughed. "And I have no doubt that you'll one day be the death of me."

Sam didn't find it nearly as funny as Gabriel did.

Gabriel liked to think they would grow old together. Well, he liked to think the Sam would grow old, and that he would use his Angel-Mojo to make it look like he himself was growing old, just to keep up appearances. He didn't like to think much past that though. He liked the growing old part, he didn't so much like the what came after. The dying part that was completely unavoidable for humans. Gabriel was pretty sure he'd never really be prepared for that.

But not being prepared didn't mean that it didn't eventually happen, and all too early for his liking. Because Sammy was still so young, hadn't had a chance to grow old. They hadn't even been together all that long, just a few months, but maybe… maybe he had always known it would end like this. There was really no other outcome, was there? This was the life of hunters: early death.

"Where are you going?" Dean asked after the funeral, after they burned Sammy's body to ash.

"Dean," Cas warned, reaching out for him. Dean smacked him away.

"No. He's gonna run away, after everything?"

"It's what I do. I didn't survive at Elysian Fields," Gabriel said, finally getting the truth off his back.

Dean blinked a few times, clearly confused. "What?"

"I didn't survive. I ran away."

"Dean," Cas said, reaching out for him again when it was clear that he didn't understand.

"I never went up against my brother. I just left and I came… well, I came here. I guess I needed to see that you all made it out alive. I didn't really expect to stick around, you know, it just kind of happened. And I realized that… well, eventually I must reach a point in time where I could go back and face him, face my fate. I guess that time is now."

Dean slowly started to understand.

"But then… then you know how it's gonna happen. You can change it."

Gabriel smiled sadly. "It doesn't really work like that, Dean-o."

Dean wished his signature mocking tone was there, wished for anything but the broken angel before him. But it's all gone, and Dean understood. He'd been through this loss before, more time that he was willing to count, and it never really got easier, that heartbreak never got any better.

Gabriel turned to the still burning burial ground. "You kill everything you touch, Sammy, and I'm no exception. But it was worth it."

He was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Dean and Cas standing alone in the almost empty field. Cas took Dean's hand in his own, and stood there until the fire went out. He didn't tell him it would be okay, didn't say that eventually it would get easier, because he knew it never would.


End file.
